Dual Moniters - Anyone done it or has knowledge about it?

[DanL]

Alright, so a few days ago, my cisco teacher was throwing old computers away. Among one of the things I scavenged from these were near-useless generic video cards from '95 or '96. I said to myself, "you know what? In that ol' server machine of yours, you've got a top-of-the-line pci card from a few years ago. Why don't you put the generic sheizer '96 card there and get a dual display system going on?"

In my main system, I now have a GeForce256 (which, through the powers of a soldering iron, is now a blazin'-fast-for-3dmax-and-other-CAD-programs Quadro card) and a oldskewl once-top-of-the-line Diamond Viper PCI card (windows recognizes it as a TNT, which I cannot confirm or deny because I've since lost the origional box/information). Here's the problem, though: when the PC boots up, the Quadro works, but the Viper doesn't. In Windows (XP Pro, if it helps), Device Manager has that little yellow ! next to it. It says, "This device cannot start. (Code 10)"

So at this point I have a AGP Quadro card that works fine and a PCI TNT card in my system. The TNT didn't work at this point, so I go and install the latest nVidia Detonator drivers on the card(Diamond has since gone under as a video-card manufactuer, and Detonator supposedly supports TNT). Unfortionately, this didn't fix the problem either. I still have that little ! in Device Manager that says the device cannot start.

So, off I go to ChiefDelphi. Has anybody ever put in two video cards into their computer to get a dual-display system going? Were you successful? Did you use any special program? Do you have any tips/suggestions/etc that you've seen online?

[AJ Quick]

I have 2 in my system right now, but I don't have the 2 monitors hooked up. I am pretty sure, all you need to do is to put them both in, and then in the display properties to set them up as the primary, and the secondary.

[Brandon Martus]

I have a monitor attached to my laptop, and my desktop stretches across the monitor & laptop lcd.

I've also used a computer for the score system at the past CDI's that had 3-4 monitors attached. We needed a separate video card for each monitor.

I think you can do it in 95,98,ME,and XP. For some reason, they left that functionality out in Win 2000.

[DanL]

Originally posted by AJ Quick
I have 2 in my system right now, but I don't have the 2 monitors hooked up. I am pretty sure, all you need to do is to put them both in, and then in the display properties to set them up as the primary, and the secondary.

Where exactly do you set one as primary and one as secondary? I don't see that option anywhere in display properties.

[Kevin Sevcik]

New plan. First things first, the Viper is a TNT card. I had one back in the days.

Now then. I suggest you try making yourself a restore point (just in case) then pulling your AGP card and trying to run with just the PCI card. It could be that it's not compatible or friend or something. If it does work, lemme know, and I'll think of something else for you to try.

Edit:
Go into your displays properties thing. if you see two rectangles with a "1" and "2" inside them, then you should be able to get things to work. if not, then the vid card isn't working yet, and the two monitors thing won't work yet.

[Suneet]

There's two things that can make an older card stop working: An incompatible or conflicting IRQ address, or an incorrectly set COM port.

Did the Viper work on the same machine before you put in the new card? Or is the Viper the card you've added to the system? If you moved the Viper from one slot to another to make room for the GeForce, the Viper might not work, because it wants to stay in the old slot, and if it's being added, it needs to know what slot it's in.

Take a look at the Viper… if it has jumpers for different IRQ numbers and different COM port numbers, that’s probably what’s wrong. Nowadays, instead of COM ports, these are called PCI slots… And older cards need to know what slot they're in to function correctly, even if they claim to be PnP.

So did you move the Viper, or is it being added?

And IRQ #s... Windows can put multiple devices on the same IRQ # without having a conflict, so it's a little hard to figure out. You have to use the BIOS, sometimes, to see if two devices are on the same number. Old diamond cards like to be on IRQ 5 or 7 , If I remember. (I had a Diamond card, long ago...)

For my own dual-monitor setup, I use my GeForce plus the card built into the motherboard, but I don't plug two monitors in too often.

See if the COM theory is correct, then worry about the IRQs...

If you want, you can IM me at AIM: ZImperial1 or MSN: GrandAdmThrawn@msn.com

[Tristan Lall]

As far as multiple video cards in Win2k goes, I've got an old Pentium Pro 200 MHz workstation at school with a Matrox Millennium and a Matrox Mystique (both PCI, 2 Mb, 220 MHz each -- yes, "faster" than the main processor! ) running together with no problems. Both work at resolutions of 1152 x 864 (and higher) without any problems in Windows. The system runs Win2k SP3, and I'm not using any special programs or drivers, apart from the defaults that come with Windows. All I had to do was plug the cards in, and they worked perfectly well.
Now, when I decided that, just for the heck of it, I'd add a third video card, a S3 Trio64V+ (or something like that), it had the same "cannot start device" error that someone else reported, but did not affect the other two monitors (it's out now, since it was just taking up a slot!).
There were some issues, a few years ago about using an AGP card along with a PCI one (in Win98, I think), but that shouldn't be a problem in WinXP or Win2k.
Also, it's very rare to have to modify Windows' IRQ settings these days, especially with PCI or AGP cards. Do you have any old hardware installed on the ISA bus, if present (modem, NIC, sound card, etc.)? You might try pulling those out temporarily, to see if there are any incompatibilities there.

[Brandon Martus]

Originally posted by Tristan Lall
...shouldn't be a problem in ... Win2k.

It may have just been the video card in my laptop that was compatable with everything but win2k. I don't rememeber offhand.

[Nate Smith]

The catch, as I've seen it, with multiple video cards, is finding a card for your second(or third, or fourth, etc.) card that does not require its BIOS to be initialized to work correctly. Your average computer can only initialize one video BIOS during bootup, so if you have more than one card that need initialization in use, you will get the "cannot start device" error that you are experiencing...

[DanL]

Alright, thanks for all the help, guys.

So heres what I've done. Like I said, my cisco teacher was throwing out several oldskewl computers, so I grabbed several '96 video cards. Anyways, so now I had three cards - the Quadro (AGP), the TNT (PCI), and the generic Trident card(PCI).

I put each into the computer by itself. By itself, each card worked fine.

I put the Quadro and TNT in. The Quadro worked, but the TNT got the error message. I took the TNT out and put Mr. Generic in. The Quadro worked but Mr. Generic didn't.

Then I took the Quadro out and put the TNT and Mr. Generic in. The TNT worked but Mr. Generic got the error message. When I switched slots, Mr. Generic worked but the TNT got the error message. Most likely what happens here is that the AGP slot is checked for a video card first, then the PCI slots in a specific order.

I doubt this is a Windows thing, because if it was, the card would display the BIOS screen and then stop - which doesn't happen. As for the IRQ's, when the card has the cannot start message, it isn't even assigned an IRQ (back in the day, my video card got to share the IRQ with my nic.... you have no idea how long and how many black-screen-with-green-hashes-which-is-b.o.s.-equivalent-of-video-card-crash crashes I went through before I learned the problem was the IRQ).

So, basically, the cards work fine by themselves. The problem therefore must be specific only to the case where two are put in at the same time. Since the card which is recognized first works fine, the problem applies always to the secondary card. So I'm led to believe in Nate's explination. Nate - do you have any more information about this issue? Like is it specifically the motherboard, or the card, or both? Would the instruction manual contain information about this? Do cards specifically say somewhere that their bios doesn't need to be initialized for the card to work? How can I make sure this is the problem?

Thanks for your help, everyone!

[evulish]

Hmm. I totally forgot that I have about 5 PCI video cards and a spare monitor. *does some digging this evening*

[Kyle Fenton]

Originally posted by SuperDanman
Alright, thanks for all the help, guys.

So heres what I've done. Like I said, my cisco teacher was throwing out several oldskewl computers, so I grabbed several '96 video cards. Anyways, so now I had three cards - the Quadro (AGP), the TNT (PCI), and the generic Trident card(PCI).

I put each into the computer by itself. By itself, each card worked fine.

I put the Quadro and TNT in. The Quadro worked, but the TNT got the error message. I took the TNT out and put Mr. Generic in. The Quadro worked but Mr. Generic didn't.

Then I took the Quadro out and put the TNT and Mr. Generic in. The TNT worked but Mr. Generic got the error message. When I switched slots, Mr. Generic worked but the TNT got the error message. Most likely what happens here is that the AGP slot is checked for a video card first, then the PCI slots in a specific order.

I doubt this is a Windows thing, because if it was, the card would display the BIOS screen and then stop - which doesn't happen. As for the IRQ's, when the card has the cannot start message, it isn't even assigned an IRQ (back in the day, my video card got to share the IRQ with my nic.... you have no idea how long and how many black-screen-with-green-hashes-which-is-b.o.s.-equivalent-of-video-card-crash crashes I went through before I learned the problem was the IRQ).

So, basically, the cards work fine by themselves. The problem therefore must be specific only to the case where two are put in at the same time. Since the card which is recognized first works fine, the problem applies always to the secondary card. So I'm led to believe in Nate's explination. Nate - do you have any more information about this issue? Like is it specifically the motherboard, or the card, or both? Would the instruction manual contain information about this? Do cards specifically say somewhere that their bios doesn't need to be initialized for the card to work? How can I make sure this is the problem?

Thanks for your help, everyone!

What do you want this for Video Mirroring or to set up monitors that display a portion of the screen?

One possibility is to make sure that your are on a fixed resolution and refresh rate that both of video cards can support. If they are on a resolution or refresh rate that the video card can't handle, it won't even get you a screen.

Another possibility is that the video cards have incompatible technology, especially when they are made by two different companies. I have heard a lot about incompatibility with some games and multiple video cards.

I really wish I could help you more, but I haven't encountered a problem like this before.

[AJ Quick]

Just FYI, Windows selects the PCI as the primary for some reason. Try hooking one monitor up to the PCI, and then right-clicking on the desktop, to configure the display adapters. Set the PCI as the master, then the AGP will be secondary... then with the AGP adapter select the "Extend Desktop Onto This Monitor".

I think I had a problem like this when I installed my second video card in this machine a few weeks ago. Setting the PCI as primary cleared it up.

[Nate Smith]

Originally posted by SuperDanman
Alright, thanks for all the help, guys.
Nate - do you have any more information about this issue? Like is it specifically the motherboard, or the card, or both? Would the instruction manual contain information about this? Do cards specifically say somewhere that their bios doesn't need to be initialized for the card to work? How can I make sure this is the problem?

Your best bet is to look online for each specific card, to see what you can find about it...and it is card-specific, not motherboard...based on what you're describing, what I earlier described sounds like the most likely cause...I actually ran into this same problem myself a while back...

[DanL]

Originally posted by Kyle Fenton


What do you want this for Video Mirroring or to set up monitors that display a portion of the screen?

One possibility is to make sure that your are on a fixed resolution and refresh rate that both of video cards can support. If they are on a resolution or refresh rate that the video card can't handle, it won't even get you a screen.

Another possibility is that the video cards have incompatible technology, especially when they are made by two different companies. I have heard a lot about incompatibility with some games and multiple video cards.

I really wish I could help you more, but I haven't encountered a problem like this before.

I want basically one desktop on two moniters - one per video card. As for the refresh rate, the secondary card is never actually in working mode, so you can't change any display properties or such for the problematic card. You're going a bit further than where the problem is.